


in the shadows of white wings

by RedPaladin465



Series: Twilight Walls: Rokunami Week 2020 [4]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, F/M, Game: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Game: Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, Game: Kingdom Hearts II, Light and shadow, Nobodies (Kingdom Hearts) - Freeform, Organization XIII (Kingdom Hearts), Present Tense, RokuNami Week (Kingdom Hearts), RokuNami Week 2020 (Kingdom Hearts), cloaked!Nami, organization!Nami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26281075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedPaladin465/pseuds/RedPaladin465
Summary: They find her wandering aimlessly in the dark.That day, the white of her dress is covered by the shadows of the dark cloak they give her.She is named their thirteenth, given a title just like the rest of them.[Rokunami Week 2020 Day 5 - Light/Shadow ft. cloaked!Nami]
Relationships: Naminé/Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Twilight Walls: Rokunami Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903201
Kudos: 11





	in the shadows of white wings

**Author's Note:**

> I have been waiting to write this AU since FOREVER.
> 
> Ngl, I've been in love with the idea of cloaked!/organization!Namine, and there are SO FEW FICS AND ART T_T I need more.
> 
> The topic for today (light/shadow) is VERY loosely interpretated in this fic. This is also the fastest I've written and published a fic. Maybe excluding the two short shots I wrote the day after I finished FFXV and was busy trying to piece my broken heart back together. ANYWAY. Hope y'all enjoy :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts series

They find her wandering aimlessly in the dark, and then tell her, _hey little songbird…you look pretty in white_.

White walls within a white castle, white pages in a white-bound sketchbook, and when she holds her first burst of color in hand, she finds that her anger too has a color—

Yellow.

It is Larxene who first pushes her over the edge, paints her walls with the first splash of yellow like lightning. She doesn’t have powerful thunder magic at her disposal or Foudre to fight with, but her body remembers the speed and strength of a person who has more than once pushed back unrelenting darkness. A sharpened yellow colored pencil is at the Savage Nymph’s throat before either of them realize what’s happening, and when Saix walks into the room, it becomes history. It becomes permanent. The yellow shades stay on her walls.

That day, the white of her dress is covered by the shadows of the dark cloak they give her.

She does not run missions the way they do or have the fierceness and bloodthirstiness they possess, but she is still a witch with the power to turn the tide in their favor. She is named their thirteenth, given a title just like the rest of them.

No. XIII: Naminé, the Chain of Memories.

 _Hey little songbird, you look beautiful like this_.

* * *

They find him wandering in the strange in-between of day and night, and Axel does a double-take the first time he sees him. It throws him back nearly ten years, to a world that is as lost as he is and meeting a boy who looks _exactly_ like the one standing in front of him.

The name he has never forgotten half-slips from his lips before he catches himself, and Xemnas tells him that this particular Nobody is incredibly special, the key to taking down their enemies once and for all. He’s kept under close supervision in the World that Never Was, in his own room with no one for company. Axel isn’t sure if it’s his familiar face that pulls him back, but something about this kid makes him remember what it’s like to truly possess a heart.

Xemnas gathers them in The Round Room, the boy captive and angry and confused in the middle of the seats where every member of the Organization can see him clearly.

“Roxas,” their Superior says. “Our Key of Destiny.”

Axel stops by after a mission three days later to hand him a blue popsicle stick.

“Sea-salt ice cream,” he says. “Seems to be all the craze in town these days. Let me know if you’re a WINNER.” The confusion on the boy’s face makes him chuckle, but he doesn’t explain as he walks out the door. It becomes a habit every few days, the ice cream. Neither of them are WINNERs in the weeks they spend eating countless popsicles and simply co-existing in Roxas’ room.

* * *

Naminé spends her days between her room, the Grey Area, and the Altar of Naught. She is Xemnas’ favorite; she knows this, knows why he tolerates her presence at the Altar—it is because she is _useful_ , a more dangerous tool with a sketchbook and a pencil than all the others with their weapons. It is for this reason that she is sent to Castle Oblivion. Her mission is to eradicate their problem, a kid with spiky brown hair who bears a striking resemblance to the one she sees wandering the Castle That Never Was, and to provide a convincing distraction for Axel to deal with the traitorous Organization members there. She is to break apart his memories…to place them inside Roxas instead.

Xemnas seals his own fate the second he lets her open a Dark Corridor to Castle Oblivion.

It is there that Naminé learns the true extent of her abilities, why Xemnas wants her on his side, who Sora is and why it is vital for him to continue on his journey. She sees, finally, the things that Sora fights for, the things that he believes in, and for the first time, she is truly inspired, pulled into the light from the darkness she has been surrounded by. She understands why Roxas, despite his lack of memory (like herself) is their key, and finally learns the truth of who she is.

While Axel is finishing Vexen off, she is rearranging Sora’s memories in her precious sketchbook. Her time with Organization XIII has turned her hands into a weapon, her backbone to steel, and that will be their downfall.

She sees Lexaeus and Larxene fade away and unchains Sora’s memories a little more. She walks out of her own Dark Corridor when Axel and the Riku replica confront Zexion, and doesn’t so much as flinch when she sees his body burn in darkness.

Still, she must play her part until the end. Naminé silently apologies—there is Marluxia left to deal with before she can finally stop what she started, and prays that it isn’t too late to fix the damage that she wreaked on Sora’s heart…and those around him, prays that the entire time she has been working, the effects on Roxas will not be detrimental.

For all of Naminé’s powers, she has no idea how they will affect both Somebody and Nobody.

She catches herself wondering the same thing about Kairi. It feels as though she knows her already, having seen her in both Sora and Riku’s memories as they move through the Castle, but knowing that Kairi doesn’t have powers like she does isn’t enough. For the first time, Naminé wants more in her existence, and as she’s chaining together fragments of memories inside both Sora and Roxas, precariously balancing both of them in splashes of blue and orange in the pages of her sketchbook, she has the overwhelming urge to take the blond boy’s hand to say, _see, here, this is what we’re missing_.

He may be a prisoner back on the World that Never Was, but Naminé runs her hands over the filled pages of her book with him on them, feeling the weight of his memories in her hands. Roxas is surrounded by darkness too. _Come with me_ , she wants to say.

Axel gives her A Look, and she closes the sketchbook to watch Marluxia fade in screams and wilted petals.

* * *

When Naminé goes on the run with Axel covering her tracks and meets up with DiZ and Riku, she takes Roxas with her. _Nobodies like us are only half a person_ , she explains to him. _But you won’t disappear. You’ll be whole!_

He takes a long time to process and work through his thoughts, but eventually, he approaches her as she’s working outside of the crystal pod Sora is sleeping in.

 _I think I understand now_.

That day, Roxas summons Oblivion and Oathkeeper for the first time.

* * *

The day Roxas makes his decision and Sora is ready, the crystal pod opens to let them meet. He turns back to her, and her heartless existence comes as close to feeling as it gets when this precious, beloved boy gives her one last, small smile.

* * *

Naminé ditches the Organization’s black cloak after that. There isn’t a need for it anymore, not even when she finally finds Kairi and is thrown back to the Castle she once called her home and navigates its familiar halls. Instead, she meets Roxas again in just her white lace dress, her eyes sparkling as he appears in front of her.

 _You said we’d meet again_.

* * *

_Hey little songbird, you’re still here._


End file.
